Body Image
by bograt
Summary: In which Tonks teaches Ginny and Hermione an important lesson about confidence and looking good


_Because every teenage girl has an issue with image._

Molly had spent the day tutting and huffing over the girls new school robes. Normally, as she had done with all the boys, she could have fixed and lengthened any readjustments that were desperately needed and simply couldn't wait until Christmas, but Ginny had reached the age of womanly development, and had grown a good inch or two since she had last bought robes, and that was nothing to be said for the sudden outbreaks of breasts and hips her daughter had somehow blossomed over the year.

Because of this, her shirts were a size too tight and her skirts three inches too short and there was no way Molly Weasley was letting any daughter of hers return to Hogwarts dressed like some scarlet woman!

As girls were, Hermione had been compelled to come along to buy her own school robes, and several hours of shopping had resulted in this: the girls downcast in the kitchen of Grimmauld place, their usual sunny disposition's swept away in the sudden realisation that their bodies had changed, and not necessarily to their liking.

"I hate my hips," Hermione announced suddenly, a comment meant only for Ginny, but not missed by Molly who was preparing dinner by the stove. She frowned, but didn't interrupt as the girl went on. "They're so huge, and they wobble."

Ginny nodded in agreement to her own misery. "I know," she sulked, "mine are huge. I can't even fit into last years skirt anymore!"

The conversation continued unnoticed by Ron and Harry, too busy in their game of wizard chess, sat only a few seats down the table. Hermione shot an acidic glance in their direction.

Molly continued to watch with decreasing hope as the Ginny stuck out her arm, and poked her underarm. "I have bingo wings at fifteen!"

As a mother, she felt it her sudden urge to intervene – her daughter was by no chance ugly, and Hermione was blossoming into a beautiful young woman – but was distracted momentarily by a pop in the fireplace and Tonks arrived in a swirl of soot. She stepped out of the hearth and sneezed loudly, her skin flecked from the journey.

"Wotcher, all," she greeted, taking a mug from the side and pouring herself a cup of tea from the pot. "Something smells delicious, Molly, what are we having?"

As Molly explained what was cooking on the stove and helped Tonks take an experimentary sip from a wooden spoon, she watched with half an eye as Hermione stood up from her place at the table, lifted her t-shirt a few inches, and grabbed what she perceived to be fat on her belly.

"Just look at this!" she wailed, stretching her skin as far as she could. Horrified, Molly spared a glance to Tonks, who was equally as appalled at Hermione's insistence that she was "just some big whale!"

Ginny mirrored her friend's actions, and too grabbed her own belly, pulling at fat that was not there. "It's hideous!" she said.

Before Molly could barely even process what her daughter was doing, Tonks was between them, and had yanked their t-shirts back down so forcefully the girls were jerked back into their seats. Above all else, the Auror looked angry, and she loomed over them like an older sister, her arms crossed and her hair crimson when moments before it had been raspberry pink.

"Neither of you are fat!" she said angrily, highlighting every word with a stab into the air. "What the hell would make you think that?"

It was a slight flick of the eyes on Hermione's part, towards the two boys, still unaware of the girl's earlier actions that betrayed the source of their conversation.

"If this is a matter of male interest, then I've got a lot to tell you about boys and dating." from the side of the kitchen, Molly was agreeing silently. Her mother had given her a similar talk when she was Ginny's age. It hadn't been long after that she had started dating Arthur.

Tonks continued, despite the girl's blushes. "There's a lot more to life than being pretty you know, and neither of you girls have anything to worry about. Now are you going to be one of those girls who prances around in pretty dresses, obsessing about her weight and how many guys she's got at her heels, or are you going to be the first female minister for magic!?"

They considered this, and it was Ginny who said first: "but Tonks you're pretty and successful."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "In the eyes of "prettiness" I'm hardly conventional. No, I'm not pretty, I'm confident. I'm proud of all my lumps and bumps, and I only ever morph my face." She pinched her stomach and cupped one of her breasts, "all mine, girlies. I only change my body for missions."

"You change your hair," Hermione added lamely.

The older woman nodded, "yeah. I do. But if I couldn't do it naturally I'd dye it with potions. That's not trying to be something unattainable, that's just adding character to what I've already got."

Feeling she wasn't getting through to them, she pulled up a chair. The boys had stopped their game now, heads cocked to once side to listen. "Girls, let me tell you, when I walk into a bar, I can get attention from any man I want. And do you know why?"

Ginny snorted. "You're a metamorphmagus! You're every mans type."

Beside her, Hermione nodded rigorously.

Tonks winked. "Well then, you'd think I'd know what men want then, wouldn't you?"

That shut them up, and the girls waited silently in anticipation to hear the secret equation that would any man's interest.

"Girls, take my word for it, this bit here" – she grabbed her stomach again, "that little bulge, it can drive _any man wild_. That's not being fat, that's being healthy, and that is sexy. Confidence is going to help you more than any amount of diets or slimming."

The boys were exchanging looks, and the girls were staring at the table. Tonks stood, and retrieved her cup of tea from the sideboard. "Personality, confidence and intelligence, that's what the real men want, and they're the only ones that are worth it."

It was by pure coincidence that Bill entered the room and Tonks seized her opportunity. "William!" she said suddenly, "answer me this: how sexy are a pair of nice, full hips?"

Bill, looking as though he'd been ambushed, grinned, "oh so sexy! No guy wants a skeleton."

Triumphant, she asked them quietly, "and do you know why that is?"

Ginny shrugged, "no?"

"Something to hold onto," she whispered with a wink.

**Reviews please!**

**Someone happened to mention that this could be perceived as a jab towards skinny girls, and the line "no guy wants a skeleton" could be seen as offensive. It's not trying to be. Look at context, ladies, and not whether or not I'm taking a jab at your dress size.**


End file.
